What Charlie Kirk actually said about whether children should watch public executions

In September 2025, Snopes readers wrote in asking whether the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk had once said children should watch public executions.

Kirk died on Sept. 10, 2025, after he was shot during a speaking event at a Utah university.

Claims about Kirk's alleged quote also circulated online. Some versions (archived) of the claim (archived) circulated alongside a specific quote attributed to Kirk that read: 

I want to see executions on TV. Imagine if Coca-Cola sponsored executions. That would be so American, so patriotic. People would tune in. I think children at a certain age, as initiation, should be required to watch. Public executions by guillotine are holy.

Other posts (archived, archived) based their claim on a 2024 Newsweek article, titled, "Trump Ally Charlie Kirk Suggests Children Should Watch Public Executions." 

Claims about Kirk's alleged suggestion also spread on Reddit (archived). 

Kirk spoke about children watching executions during an episode of his THOUGHTCRIME panel discussion show on Feb. 15, 2024. During that show, Kirk said about the death penalty that (time code 49:35), "It should be public, it should be quick, it should be televised." 

Later in the show, Kirk and his panelists discussed whether children should watch public executions and Kirk said (time code 50:17), "I think at a certain age it's an initiation," though the panel did not agree on what that age was. Kirk did acknowledge during the podcast that public executions and the death penalty were (51:17) "heavy" topics but supported public access as a way to deter crime.

The purported quote that spread in 2025, however, appeared to be an incorrectly attributed summary of the THOUGHTCRIME discussion rather than a direct quote from Kirk. Kirk did say during the show that public executions could have corporate sponsors like Coca Cola, and that watching these would be an "initiation" for children. However, he did not outright say it should be required, nor that "Public executions by guillotine are holy."

Given the above and the fact that we could not seek clarification from Kirk himself about what he meant, we have not given this claim a rating.

What Kirk said

Kirk and his co-presenters Jack Posobiec, Tyler Bowyer and Blake Neff were discussing capital punishment in the context of whether they believed convicted pedophiles should receive the death penalty. 

About 40 minutes into the show, the discussion about capital punishment moved on to whether it should be public and, if so, who should watch. Kirk said (time code 49:35), "It should be public, it should be quick, it should be televised."

He added (time code 49:53), "You could have like 'Brought to you by Coca Cola' and no, I'm not kidding. By the way, I would totally tune in to see some pedo get their head chopped off. Convicted by a jury of their peers. I'm talking about a real thing."

The discussion moved on to whether children should watch publicly broadcast executions. Kirk said (time code 50:17, our emphasis): 

I think at a certain age it's an initiation. No, but hold on, you see, if all of a sudden, you look at some of these savages like in Indiana, there was this guy that went in and killed a pregnant woman and her three kids. And, you know what, I want to watch that execution, that'll make my day better. I want to see him on a public block and get him be publicly executed, and I think that would be justice. You think children should have … you should see … what is the age? At what age should you start to see public executions? 

The show's co-hosts Bowyer and Neff each suggested 16- and 12-year-olds, respectively, as appropriate viewing ages. Kirk said (time code 51:13), "But it should also be taken in a holy way. Now, I don't mean holy in a bad way, I mean that, like, this is heavy."

Kirk did not say that executions should be mandatory viewing for children or give an opinion on what age he thought was appropriate to start. He did, however, express a belief that making executions public would deter future crimes. Kirk said (time-code 51:42):

Kirk: I want you to imagine everyday, all of a sudden they said: "And today, remember that awful five, you know, the guy that went and shot up a school?" Because, you know, left hates school shooters, and so do we and, but they focus on the gun, I think they're evil. So, you know, you take one of these school shooters and they say, "Today we're going to publicly execute this person." And they read off —

Posobiec: How about the Super Bowl?

Kirk: Yeah, or the shooters at the Super Bowl thing, and you read off what they did and you don't celebrate it, you know, you just say, "Look, this is what they did and if you do this, this will be your fate," ready, set, go. Boom, end of life. And say —

Kirk: As a question — Here's a question for anybody that might be, you know, not persuaded. Would crime go up or down? 

Bowyer: It would go way down

Kirk: Down. So then why is this even a question?

Nine states — Oklahoma, Missouri, Alabama, South Carolina, Texas, Florida, Utah, Georgia and Indiana — carried out 25 executions in 2024, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a non-profit group that provides data and analy­sis on issues con­cern­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

According to a DPIC report from 2018, of the 17 states that carried out executions by lethal injection between January 2011 and August 2018, 14 "pre­vent­ed wit­ness­es from see­ing at least some part of the exe­cu­tion" and 15 "pre­vent­ed wit­ness­es from hear­ing what was hap­pen­ing inside the exe­cu­tion cham­ber."

Snopes has fact checked a number of quotes attributed to Kirk, including whether Kirk called Martin Luther King Jr. "awful" or said some gun deaths were "worth it" in order to have Second Amendment.